Monday, 28 May 2007

MM #12: A marriage of vanilla and chocolate

Tonight I achieved agreement between E and myself on cake! He is always most appreciative of my baking but in his heart of hearts, he wants a buttery vanilla cake. Whereas I am always hoping for a rich dense chocolate cake.

Last weekend’s pairing of spice and pear cake with Notella not only made me feel there were many possibilities of improving any dessert with rich chocolate sauce, but it also left me with a tub of the sauce in the fridge.

Recently my friend, Kathleen, passed on a hot milk cake recipe to me which she recommended for cupcakes. It is not the sort of recipe I usually make – lots of eggs, no chocolate, no fruit, no spice! But my sister, Francesca, has asked mum and me to make cupcakes for her wedding later in the year, so I thought it might be worth trying this recipe out. Especially given that I had an abundance of chocolate Notella sauce that might be a pleasing frosting.

My mum makes cupcakes regularly, but I don’t, although I have made them often enough to know the batter I am accustomed to is fairly stiff. The batter resulting from this recipe was alarmingly runny. It was foamy and smooth like a sponge cake batter which produced fairy light cup cakes. A perfect foil for the richness and nuttiness of the notella.

I also wanted to make these cakes because they are just the thing E loves. We had them hot out of the oven for dessert with warm notella and cream. They were light and melting. Both of us gave them high praise.

I iced the rest of the cupcakes with notella and decorated with chou-chous. These were very welcome when I visited my family the next day for a birthday get together. But a word of warning – the notella remained moist and didn’t set which made them a little less portable.

Beat eggs and sugar with electric beaters til well mixed. This wont take long. Heat butter and milk in a small saucepan til butter melts. Add dry ingredients and egg mixture, alternatively, with milk mixture. (I didn’t sift the flour as suggested in the recipe but it did mean I had to use electric beaters on low to make sure the mixture was smooth.) Add vanilla.

Pour batter into cupcake cases. I used a quarter cup measure to spoon it in because the batter was so runny, and I filled them almost to the top. Bake 20-25 minutes til skewer comes out clean – mine were very pale but seemed to be cooked through.

6 comments:

That looks delicious! I bought some cup measuring spoons yesterday, as we use metric in the uk and I always have to look up the conversion. So I am writing down the ingredients and I am going to christen the measuring spoon with these cupcakes!

hi holler - I think that is a good move to buy cups/spoons for measurements - they are so much easier than weighing everything (although maybe not as accurate) - and I would recommend the cupcakes for the 'christening'.

thanks for the recipe kathleen - am glad I took your advice - it strikes me as an easy alternative to sponges (no separating eggs). And it was popular with kids and adults! am sure berry coulis would be great with it!

Meeta - thanks for hosting the monthly mingle - I look forward to mingling with others' recipes when they are up. And happy birthday :-)

thanks for that interesting titbit susan - it is indeed one of the mysteries of life that you can eat these little silver balls!!! I quite understand a government being concerned - I encountered a little concern as to whether they were edible myself :-)

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Recipes and reflections in which our vegetarian heroine dreams of being tall and graceful as a giraffe; being a goddess in the kitchen; and being gladdened by green gadgets, green food and green politics because green is the colour of hope. See About Me for more info.